Vietnam Women’s Grandmaster Nguyen Thi Mai Hung won a gold medal at the Asian Individual Blitz Women Chess Championship, which closed in Uzbekistan on Saturday.

Nguyen Thi Mai Hung

Hung, who was the No 14 seed, earned 7.5 points after nine games. She was followed by Ramesh Babu Vaishali of India and Pourkashiyan Atousa from Iran.

Her teammate and No 1 seed, Pham Le Thao Nguyen, had a poor performance as she finished No 18 with only 4.5 points.

On the men’s side, the No 1 player lost in the final match when he met GM Lu Shanglei of China, losing to his first place rival. Lu won the gold medal with 7.5 points and Liem followed with 7 points . The bronze medal went to Lalith Babu of India, with the same points.

Earlier, GM Liem also missed winning a gold medal in the final round of the standard event, losing to GM Ganguly Surya Shekhar of India.

Despite winning a silver medal, Liem was awarded a ticket to compete at next year’s World Cup.

In other chess news, Vietnam brought home 27 gold, 23 silver and 35 bronze medals from the 17th ASEAN+ Age Group Chess Championships, which closed in Thailand on Saturday.

VNS